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MANUFACTURE OF STEEL. I No. 283,735. Patented Aug. 21, 1883;

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MANUFACTURE OF STEEL. No. 283,735. Patented Aug. 21, 1883.

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J. GIERS.

MANUFACTURE OF STEEL.

Qgl Aug. 21. 1883.

Patent M PETERS. PIluIO-hlhognphnr, Walhingkm nc UNITED STATES PATENTOFFICE.

JOHN GIERS, OF MIDDLESBROUGH-ON-TEES, COUNTY OF YORK, ENGLAND.

MANUFACTURE OF STEEL.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 283,735, dated August21, 1883.

Application filed April 18, 1882. (No model.) Patented in England March'7, 1882, No. 1,089; in France May 8. 1882, No. 148,829;

in Germany May 9,1882, No. 21,716; in Belgium May 12, 1882, No. 57,891,and in Austria April 7. 1883, No. 27,035.

To aZZ whom, it may concern:

Be it known that 1, JOHN Grnns, a subject of the Queen of Great Britainand Ireland, residing at Middlesbrough-on-Tees, in the North Riding ofcounty of York, England, have invented a certain new and usefulImprovement in the Manufacture of Steel; and I do hereby declare thefollowing to be a full, clear, and exact description of the invention,such as IO will enable others skilled in the art to which it appertainsto make and use the same.

Hitherto, when a steel ingot has been cast, either by the Bessemer, theopen-hearth, or other process, it has in practice usually been taken,while yet hot, to a heating-furnace, and therein brought to a sufficientand even heat, preparatory to being rolled down into a bloom or into afinished article. This has been done at considerable expense in skilledlabor, in

fuel, in loss of yield, and in the building and maintaining of costlyheating-furnaces. In some isolated cases it has been experimentallyattempted to obviate the above-described i11- convenience and loss byrolling down ingots 2 immediately after they have been stripped from themold and without the application of anyheat other than their initialheat or that derived from the fluid metal. of which they were formed;but in practice it has been found 0 impossible to carry this out, sinceevery ingot could not be taken to the rolls at once, while, moreover, asis well known, the heat of an ingot is unequally distributed that is tosay, an ingot, when stripped quickly, is in the interior 3 5 too hot forrolling, (sometimes it is even in a fluid or partially fluid state",)and if kept long enough for the interior to, be reduced to the properheat the exterior becomes, from radiation, too cold for rolling. Thepractice has 0 also been described, and been followed to some extent, ofplacing hoods or shieldslined with refractory material over the ingotsafter they are stripped and before being conveyed to the rolls, toprevent unequal cooling, or to put 4 5 them in port-able chambers solined, in which they are conveyed to the blooming-rolls; also, ofpacking them for a while before rolling in pulverized charcoal, or anequivalent pulverized material, in portable boxes or chambers aboveground or in pits, and commanded by cranes to lift them from the moldsto the rolls.

ter the ingots are deposited therein.

prefer to use-a second or false cover slightly chambers or pits, andfrom thence to the blooming-rolls; but I have found, by trial, all theseplans defective, for the reason, mainly, that the exterior of the ingotbecomes .suddenly cooled or too greatly cooled to admit of properdevelopment and uniform distribution of the heat throughout the ingot,and that these methods are also cumbersome and impracticable.

Now, my invention consists in constructing a series of stationaryvertical soaking pits or chambers-preferably under ground and near theblooming-rolls, and provided with thick walls of refractorymaterialthe'se underground chambers to be previously heated by thefirstcharge of theingots, and their temperature maintained by the successivecharges, the use of any pulverized material or the employment ofportable-chambers or hoods to be entirely dispensed with. I employ,also, suitable cranes to carry the ingots quickly fromthe molds to thepits, and from thence to the By these means the surface heat of theingot is maintained or even increased from what it is when it leaves themold, the interior heat reduced, its uniform distribution secured, an dthe whole process shortened and improved.

My invention, in a convenient form, is illustrated in the accompanyingdrawings, in which Figure 1 is an elevation and part ver tical section;Fig. 2, a plan. Fig. 3 is a view in cross-section of the soaking-pits,and Fig. 4 a similar view of a modification thereof. Referring to thedrawings, a is a Bessemer casting-pit. I) b are cranes commanding thesame, and c c are soaking-pits, shown arranged in a block of four rows,but which may be otherwise arranged-as, for example, concentrically tothe crane. d is a bloomingmill, and e is a crane for transferring theheated ingots from the soaking-pits to the rolls. The soaking-pits c areconstructed in a mass of refractory material, j such as fire-brick-whichwill absorb a large amount of heat While in use. It is a cover or lid,lined also with refractory material, with which the pits c are coveredaf- 1 also smaller in cross-section than the pit, consisting of a slabor block of fire-brick, which is placed on top of the ingot inside ofthe pit before the .outside cover is put on, as shown. at i, Fig. 8.This is especially desirablewhen the ingot is much shorterthan the pit.

Fig. 4 represents a pit constructed partly above and partly belowground; but insuch case the wall of refractory material should be madethicker than when the chambers are entirely below ground, so as torender them practically under ground.

WVhen the ground is wet, or for other reasons an under-ground pit isundesirable, the the soaking-pits may be built entirely above ground;butin such cases, as just stated, the exterior wall should be madethicker, so as to set over the heat.

As the practical success of my improvement depends, notupon a slowcooling of the ingots, but upon returning to the surface of the ingotsthe heat radiated therefrom while in the soaking-pit, it becomesnecessary that the surrounding walls of the pit should be of sufficientthickness to receive and accumulate a large store of heat with as littleloss from external radiation as possible. For this purpose, if goodfire-brick be used, athickness of wall eighteen inches will ordinarilysuffice, although walls of somewhat less thickness might perhaps securethe desired result.

Each soaking-pit cis of a cross-section slightly larger than that of theingot, and of a'depth slightly deeper than the length of the ingot.

In practice I find it advantageous to make the pit of a cross-sectionexceeding that of the ingot by as little as is compatible with thereadyinsertion and withdrawal of the ingots; but in order to allowfor thosecases in which the inper end may be only about six inches below themouth of the pit. Into such apit each ingot, after being stripped, ispromptly placed and covered over at once with the lid. Before theoperatiou'of rolling is commenced the soaking-pits are heated by thefirst charge of ingots,

which are ,inserted solely for that purpose. By the successive chargesof the ingots the brick-work of the soaking-pit is heated and maintainedto about a certain temperature, so that if by any delay an ingot isreceived short of heat its temperature is raised by the heat from thewalls of the pit itself. Thus the refractory mass of which the pits areformed acts as an accumulator and regulator of heat, giving andabsorbing the same as is required to carry on in a practical continuousmanner the operation of preparing the ingots for rolling.

The period during which the ingot is to be left in the pit varies withthe size of the ingot and respective temperatures of pit-and ingot atthe time of the insertion of the ingots in thepit. WVith ingots abouttwelve inches average thickness I have found about thirty minutessufficient. After a sufficient time has been allowed to elapse thesurface heat of the ingot is increased, assumes about the sametemperature as the interior, and a proper and uniform temperatureacquired, which fits the ingots for the operation of the blooming-rolls.

The feature. of my improvement which distinguishes it from attemptswhich have been heretofore made to prepare newly-cast steel ingots forrolling without subjecting them to the action of furnace heat consistsin what I term a soaking process, as, distinguished from a process ofslow or retarded cooling. By a soaking process I mean treatingnewly-cast ingots, while the steel is in a fluid or semi-fluid conditionat the center and while sufficiently solid at the surface of the-ingot,in a pit surrounded by walls of refractory non conducting materialcapable of being highly heated by the absorption of heat from successivecharges of ingots treated therein, and of sufficient thickness toprevent any material loss of heat by radiation from the exterior, sothat when the newly-cast ingots are placed in such heated pit the heatradiated therefrom is continually returned to the surface of the ingot,thereby allowing the interior of the ingot to part with its excess ofheat, while the exterior gradually rises in temperature until the wholemass acquires a uniform temperature suitable for roll ing or hammering.

similar substance, interposed between the walls of the pit and theingot, a process of slowor exterior of the ingot would always remainmatire mass becomes too cold to be worked. If, however, more ingotsshould be cast or taken from the molds and placed in such soakingpitssimultaneously and treated as above, substantially the same resultsmight possibly be obtained, in which case the process would be the sameas above described and herein claimed;

separately.

It will also be seen that the above process might be followed with theingots placed in the pits in a horizontal position; but Iprefer toarrange them vertically, as already described.

claim, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is

1. The process hereinbefore described of preparing newly-cast steelingots for rolling or hammering by subj ecting them for a short timeheated soaking-pits composed of or lined with a sufficient thickness offire-brick or similar refractory non-conductive material, whereby theheat radiated from the ingots is returned If the ingot were surroundedwith a consid erable a1r-space or with powdered charcoal or retardedcooling would be the'result, and the terially cooler than the interior,until-the en- I Having described my invention, what I,

but I prefer treating each ingot singly and I to a heat-equalizingtreatment in previouslythereto by the walls of the pit until asubstantially uniform temperature of the ingot is ating newly-cast steelingots'preparatory toworkr 5 tained, substantially as and for thepurpose hereinbefore described. l 2. As an improvement in apparatus fortreat- .ing newly-cast steel ingots preparatory to rolling or hammering,vertical soaking-pits constructed of or lined with a sufficientthickness of fire-brick or other suitable non-conducting refractorymaterial to serve as an accumulator and radiator of heat given out fromthe ingots placed therein, each. such pit having a separate lid orcover, substantially as and for the purpose described.

3. As an improvement in apparatus for treating vertical soakingpitsconstructed of or lined with fire-brick or similar material ofsuflicient thickness substantially to prevent the external radiation ofheat, each such soaking-pit being furnished with a separate outer lid orcover and an inner or false cover to be laid 011 top of the ingot withinthe pit, substantially as and for the purpose described.

JOHN G-lERS.

'Witnesscs:

W. COOPER, EDGAR OUTHWAITE,

Both of Middlesbrough-on-Tees;

